Pack Dynamics

The Fire

Casey groaned softly, waking up. His body ached down to his bones and the cement floor under him felt like, well, cement. His muscles seized as he tried to sit up, sending a shooting pain down his back and tailbone. He grimaced, everything coming back to him like a shadowy dream: Lavoie, the cell, the drug, and mating with Mason, of course.

And Shelby.

Riddled with guilt over neglecting the very reason he was here, Casey rolled to his side, searching out the prone body in the other cell. Shelby’s chest was still rising and falling softly, but otherwise she still wasn’t moving,

A furry head butted against his side and Casey rolled to the other side, sitting up and looking into dark canine eyes. The wolf sat back on his haunches looking at Casey intently. Cautiously, Casey reached out and touched his fingers to the thick black fur on the wolf’s neck. It leaned into his touch trustingly – fathomless, black eyes unblinking.

“Hey.” Casey whispered softly, voice still rough from sleep.

The wolf continued to gaze at him.

Casey had no idea how long he had been out. Was Mason still more wolf than human? “Mason? You okay, can you come out?”

The wolf just wuffed softly and moved closer. His large body dwarfed Casey’s prone form, he actually moved his body right over Casey, forcing him to lean back against the floor.

“Whoa!” Casey yelped. The wolf’s body was heavy and hot, Mason’s muzzle pressed into his throat in a clear show of dominance. Casey tensed automatically but was surprised when it sunk in that it didn’t actually feel bad. The heat and weight was soothing, the gentle press of teeth and muzzle made him feel safe instead of subjugated. He let his neck go limp, exposing his throat.

The wolf growled his approval.

Casey’s fingers stroked lightly over the wolf’s shoulder and down a forearm, confused by the feel of sticky matted fur near the wolf’s paw.

Casey looked closer to see what was causing it. The blood was so dark it was nearly impossible to see in the black coat. But did show up on the floor in the form of bloody paw prints. “Jesus Christ, what happened?”

Casey pushed at the shifter body blanketing him, struggling to sit up; lucky the wolf allowed this, moving back. Carefully, Casey inspected a forepaw. The pads on the bottom were raw and cut and the black nails were torn up. The other paw was in the same condition.

It didn’t take long for Casey to catch sight of the blood smeared hole along the far side of the cell. “Have you been digging cement?! Fuck, Mason, you could have really hurt yourself.”

The wolf wuffed, irritated at being rebuked.

“Turn human. I am not having this conversation while you’re shifted.”

The wolf curled his lip slightly, clearly not liking his tone.

“Mason!”

There was a flicker and the wolf form was replaced by a naked human Mason. His hands and long fingers were all scraped up.

“Are you ok?”

Mason took a moment, clearly trying to readjust to his human system. Self-consciously, he moved his hands out of direct view. “Fine, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“And the drug?” Casey questioned. “Are you still affected?”

“I’m fine.” Mason said shortly. “I can still feel it, but I’m in control now. More in control now,” he amended. “Are you okay?”

Casey stretched a little, working the kinks out of his stiff muscles. “I’m good.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Really?”

Casey met his gaze heatedly. “I’m trapped in this cage. I feel like I’ve been run over by a small car. And it feels like someone shoved a hot poker up my ass. If you want complete honesty – but I’m fine.”

“Well, I think I can do something about one of those things.” Mason gestured to the edge of the bars.

Casey shook his head in disbelief and muttered, “I still can’t believe you dug into solid cement.”

“Only around those two bars. I cleared away the cement they were embedded in. I think we can bend them enough now to escape.”

“Think so?” Casey wasn’t so sure.

“Yes.” Mason grit his teeth, uncompromising, “We are getting out of here.”

Casey had no choice but to agree. He followed Mason over to the bars. They both grabbed the same bar, near the bottom where it had been freed from the cement. Casey’s stomach rolled at the smell of Mason’s blood. Both men pulled hard, and slowly the metal bar started to bend.

“Harder.” Mason ordered.

“I’m pulling as hard as I can.” Casey grunted.

“Harder!” Mason demanded again, no room for refusal.

Casey’s cat leant him strength and the bar continued to bend farther.

“Now the other.” Mason switched his position, grabbing the second bar, Casey did the same and they slowly bent it in the opposite direction.

Panting, muscles quivering from the strain, Casey eyed the hole they had created. It would be a tight fit. He opened his mouth to tell Mason that but the older man was already morphing into his wolf form - the wolf’s shoulders were significantly narrower than his human ones.

Crawling on his belly, Mason managed to squeeze his way to the other side and then shifted human again. He gestured to Casey, “Come. No time to waste. They said they had surveillance in this place and sooner or later someone’s going to check it.”

Brusquely, Casey stripped his clothes off and dropped forward onto all fours as he shifted. The sleek jaguar pulled itself through the bars; the fit was tight and left him feeling even more bruised but he managed, because his mate was waiting there for him with barely concealed impatience.

Still in jaguar form, he sniffed the naked human male, brisling a little at the smell of the blood. But, because of the way Casey’s cat was so attuned to the Alpha, it only took a moment to ascertain the male was not in immediate need of help.

There was another though, one who did need assistance. The jaguar changed direction so quickly that Mason, who had been reaching out to touch his coat, was left with his fingers brushing air.

Casey pushed his way into the open cell than held the female body. The jaguar licked at a vicious looking cut across her cheek – there was no response. He shifted, human hands coming up to cradle her face. “Shelby? Shelby!” Alarmed, Casey turned back to Mason. “What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she wake up?”

Mason’s eyes were hard and inscrutable. “Whose mate are you?”

Casey growled, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Mason that stupid, fucking drug is still affecting you. Try to concentrate; we need to wake up Shelby and find a way out.”

“You’re supposed to be mine...” Mason’s voice was unexpectedly soft.

Casey barely even heard him, but he did recognize the tone of disapproval. “Now’s not the time, Mason.”

“I think I always knew.”

Casey looked up at the usual tone, a lock of blonde and dark brown hair fell over his forehead. “Knew what?”

“That you were my mate, Casey.”

Casey’s heart stopped.

“I knew the moment I saw you. God, you were so little. There was something about you... you were standing up to those two bullies. So strong, so tough. But underneath... The potential to be vulnerable for the right person. I thought if I just protected you, and waited...I thought it was just a matter of time. You would grow up and notice it, too, realize that you were my mate. Well, you grew up, but you never felt the bond.

I used to fantasize about it, once you were older. About you coming to me and telling me that you feel it – the pull, the need. I waited and waited and waited. You turned 16, 17, 18...it was getting harder and harder for me to hide it. The need to claim you, mate with you was getting worse. I finally decided I couldn’t wait anymore. I would have to tell you. And then you just disappeared. Gone. And after a few months not even that damn pet bed smelled like you any longer. And then you were back. Looking none the worse for wear. And I hated you for it. But I was also so relieved. You were back, finally, where I thought you belonged. And eventually, it didn’t matter that you had left, all that mattered is you were back, my mate was back, and I had another chance. I even thought that maybe the time you had been gone was a blessing, maybe you had figured it out and were back because you were finally, finally ready to accept my mating.

And then I find out you only came back to save your...girlfriend.” He spat the word like a curse. “And that our mat– whatever happened between us didn’t change that. Well, I’m done, Casey. I’ll get us out of here. But then, that’s it. You’re on your own, because I can’t do it any longer.”

Casey felt winded, overwhelmed. He didn’t respond right away and Mason’s jaw clenched, his whole demeanour screaming inapproachability.

Casey had never seen him like this, not in eight years, not even when he came back after running out on the pack.

“Mase –”

“Do you smell that?” Mason snapped, suddenly stiffly alert.

It took a moment to follow the lightening-quick change of topic. Casey sniffed deeply. Smoke. “Something’s on fire.”

Smoke started to billow down the stairs from the first floor. Mason’s expression grew grim. “My guess is the building.”

Casey let his shifter sense expand, he could smell smoke, thick, noxious smoke, but something else too, gasoline. Lots of it. He could hear the sound of flames eating up wood, the whoosh of air being sucked up in fire. This fire might have just been started, but it was already out of control and growing by the second. Dimly, he heard yelling and feet stomping. Lavoie’s men attempting to escape the blaze.

From Mason’s expression, Casey knew he was processing the same information and coming to the same conclusion. They had to get out and get out now.

“We’re not getting out of here in human form.” Mason stated grimly. “Even our chances in animal form are not looking good. Shift.”

Casey looked over at Shelby. The injured woman still hadn’t moved; her breath shallow and rattling. “I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to carry her in my jaguar form. I have to stay human.”

“You won’t make it as a human. Is she worth that? Worth your life?” Mason snarled bitterly.

Casey didn’t bother to answer, leaning over, trying to pull Shelby up. But she was dead weight. Casey guessed close to 200 pounds of dead weight – shifters were deceptively heavy, in human form or not. Even with his preternatural strength, Casey was not going to be able to carry that body more than five feet, let alone up three flights of stairs, and out to safety with the speed required before the place came down and finished the job.

He dropped to his knees, pulling pleadingly at Shelby’s clothing. “Come on, Shelby, wake-up. You gotta wake up now. Shelby!” He was practically screaming right in the prone girl’s ear; honestly bewildered by the taste of his own salty tears in his mouth. Fuck, they were going to die here. Casey knew it with a certainty. He wasn’t going to leave Shelby behind, and unless Shelby woke-up, right the fuck now, he wasn’t going to be able to pull her out. Surprisingly, his jaguar wasn’t freaking out, his cat didn’t even seem that scared of dying, just a mournful sense of dread at being separated from Mason by death. Need Alpha, stay with Alpha, his cat repeated, scratching and itching at his insides, no thought of its own death or that of Shelby’s.

Hands grabbed his shoulders, pulling him up. He fought against it wildly. “Lemme go.”

Mason shook him bodily, his head snapping back and forth at the force. “Snap out of it, you have to get out of here, Casey!”

“I can’t,” Casey cried out, sounding more hysterical by the second, “I can’t leave her. You go Mason, there’s still time. Please, leave.”

There was a snapping sound, like a tree cracking through the trunk, and then the building shuttered on its foundation. A floor collapsing. Casey flung himself over the helpless body on the ground, trying to shield Shelby from the worse of the debris shook loose from the ceiling. Mason dragged him up again right away.

“Shift,” Mason commanded in a yell. “Shift now and run!”

“I ca – ”

Mason interrupted his dissent with a primal roar. “Shift and run. I’ll carry the fucking body.”

Casey faltered and then suggested desperately, “W...we could work together... we could both take an arm...”

“No. That’s not the deal. You morph and get out of here first, or I don’t carry her. I knock you out and carry you out and she dies down here.”

“Shelby...”

“She’ll be right behind you, Casey.” Mason swore. “But you have to go first. You have to be safe first. We don’t have time to argue this.”

Casey heard the creaking of another support column about to give away. He shifted.

Mason, looking grim and old as he stroked Casey’s mottled fur, over his ears just once, and then smacked his flank. “Run.”

Casey took off, looking back once at the top of the stairs, to see Mason heave the body over a shoulder in a fireman’s carry, staggering slightly under the weight.

Casey raced up the stairs the smoke was heavy and the flames where lapping the walls creating an inferno of heat and light. On instinct alone, he navigated through the building and was almost out the door when he heard a yell and gunshot from back in the smoky building. Without hesitation, he turned tail and ran back in.

On the first floor landing, Jessica was blocking the path out, she had a gun trained on Mason, Shelby’s heavy weight still hanging off his shoulder.

“You’re not gettin’ out of here, Boss.” Jessica barked at him. “You humiliated me and this pack by aligning yourself with the worthless Betrayer, and now you’re gonna die.”

Mason stared her down with surprising coolness. “You. You’re the one who warned Lavoie that I was coming to free Shelby.”

“Yes. That was a ridiculous plan on your part. That disloyal bitch deserves to be crushed under the pack’s shoe not saved.” She made a wild gesture with the gun. “And we all know why you did it.”

“You told Lavoie Casey was coming, too.”

“Yes, Eugene came and told us that Casey was going to try to save that useless whelp. He wanted us to help, too. Eugene...I thought he understood. But in the end he was as weak as you, willing to forsake your own kind just to keep that disloyal jaguar happy.”

“Casey. You poisoned him too, with the grao.”

“Yes.” The she-wolf spit out. “I was hoping it would teach him something. Teach him how to embrace his animal side. That was before I knew he was a Betrayer, now I know he needs more than just a lesson, he needs to die, like that rag-doll bitch over your shoulder.”

Mason’s jaw clenched, streaked with soot and sweat from the heat and physical exertion. “Jessica, back off. NOW!”

She started sniggering. “No fucking way, Boss. You are not my Alpha any more. You’re not worthy of that title. You need to die, you and that Betrayer and Casey because he’s behind all this. I thought Lavoie would take care the problem. But then it turned out he didn’t have the balls I thought he did. He just wanted to play with you, experiment on you, he wasn’t planning on kill you at all. So I had to take matters into my own hands.”

Mason snarled. “You aren’t going to hurt them. Either of them. I won’t let you.”

“I figured I’d have to go through you. You always were too much a bitch when it came to that jaguar. A real Alpha would have just put him in his place and been done with it. It wouldn’t have come to this.” She waved her hands around at the flames.

“You set the fire.” Mason growled.

“Yes. Unfortunately, I didn’t know at the time you had managed to get out of the cells. By the time I saw the feed from the camera, I had already set the fire in motion. So I grabbed a gun off one of Lavoie’s men and stayed behind to finish the job.”

She was insane. Casey could see that clearly, her eyes were glassy, fanatic. She waved the gun around with no control or concept of consequences. She would shoot Mason without hesitation. Casey had to do something. He ran towards them and knocked over a table in his haste and both sets of eyes turned towards him.

Jessica cackled, her springy black curls starting to singe at the ends as she looked over at Casey, eyes filled with hate. “Oh good, you can see them die before I finish you off.”

Jessica levelled the gun at Mason and shot. Casey launched himself into the air and in front of Mason, the bullet, slicing over the underbelly of the big cat. He tackled Jessica, a muzzleful of teeth ripping at the deranged woman’s throat.

So focused on protecting his Alpha, it wasn’t until the threat was lifeless under his paws that Casey felt the burning on his chest and stomach, the stickiness of blood soaking into his fur. Fuck. Grey and black spots blurred his vision and the world narrowed hazily. Time seemed to slow and stop and he drifted into a fuzzy sort of warm where the bullet didn’t even hurt anymore.

“ – Sey! Casey!”

He wondered how long Mason had been calling his name, it must have been a few times, ‘cause he sounded pretty pissed. Shouldn’t be pissed. Didn’t he know Casey had just saved his life? Should be grateful not pissed.

He tried tell Mason that, but only remembered he was still in cat form when his reprimand came out as a distressed, little hiss. He let go the cat, and shifted back into his human form, it was painful and he felt the blood started to gush out of the wound faster.

He felt Mason’s hands on him clamping down on the open flesh, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

It sounded like his Alpha was a million miles away. He sounded distraught, but Casey couldn’t figure out why. After all, it was all going to be okay now. For once, he had protected Mason. He knew the other man would be okay; nothing could harm Mason, he was so strong, so powerful, he would survive. Casey could die peacefully if he believed that Mason would be okay. There was just one little nagging thought. Another jaguar. A weaker jaguar, who needed saving. His cat just wanted to go to sleep, despite the fact he hear Mason screaming at him far off in the distance. Casey wanted to sleep, too, but the nagging thought wouldn’t go away. Another jaguar... The thought and sound and smell of Mason was so all encompassing, that he could hardly fathom another shifter existed. No that was just his mind playing tricks on him, it was just Mason, it had always been just Mason and he was so fucking warm and floating because he had was going to die for Mason and that was...okay.

Except...Except Mason was still yelling at him, getting more and more worked up.

Through the haze he heard Mason say “Shelby”. Oh right, Shelby was the other cat. But he couldn’t for the life of him remember why that was important. He whimpered in confusion.

“-at got your attention did it?” Mason was yelling over the roar of the fire, “Well, if you die on me, Casey I’ll let your precious Shelby die, I swear I will. So, you fucking better start to fight.”

Casey didn’t understand a word that was being said, but he parroted back the only word he had made out clearly from that ranting, “...Shelby.” His voice was thin and barely more than an exhale, but he just wanted to attempt to let Mason know he was trying to pay attention.

“That’s right. She’s going to burn in this death trap if you don’t survive, Casey. You can’t die. Think about Shelby. I’ll kill her myself if you die. Fuck that, I’m going to kill you if you die on me!”

Casey was so, so tired, but... Mason sounded so angry with him. He couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he always knew when Mason was angry. Even his jaguar was starting to stir again, growing restless. The cat didn’t want to die knowing the Alpha was angry with him.

He felt his body being jostled, pain burning up his body, but instead of letting the hazy fog swallow him up he fought against it. Initially leaving the fog hurt like a sonofabitch, but he tired he really did, using Mason’s scent to guide him back, despite the heavy stench of smoke and gunfire and blood and charred flesh.

He felt his body being laid down in damp grass, the heat lessening substantially. He forced his eyes open, but he couldn’t make them focus. Some distance away he could just make out the outline of a fiery building shell. No, no, no! Where was Mason? Was Mason in that building?

He felt a burst of energy, and was startled to find his muscles actually respond. He rolled over and fought his way to his hands and knees.

Strong hands grabbed his body, holding him down. “What are you trying to do, twist around until that cut rips open and your guts fall out?”

“Naa..” Casey wailed, arching, needing to get into that building; he clawed at the ground.

“You have to hold still. I’m going back in for her. I’ll get Shelby, for you, I promise.”

Shelby? No, Mason, he needed to save Mason. “N’ Shelby.” Casey tried to wriggle free of the hands holding him immobile.

“I said I’d get her! You need to stop moving around, you’re losing too much blood.” The voice sounded like it was coming from far away and it was unrecognizable to Casey. He fought harder, knowing that the building could not remain standing much longer.

He heard a curse and then a crack as a fist struck his jaw and then it all went black.

~~~

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